A mobile sensor network using autonomously controlled animals

Recent research has demonstrated that it is possible to use wireless communication to deliver brain stimulation to guide the movements of rats through a variety of terrains by stimulating multiple brain regions to produce stimulus cues for various commanded movements. The rats can be controlled not only while in direct line of sight of a human controller, but also by teleoperation, using signals transmitted from a wireless video camera mounted on the animal's backpack. Remotely guided rats or other animals are ideal for search and rescue operations because they are highly adept at negotiating difficult 3D terrain, in both light and dark. The animals autonomously choose their own methods for traversing particular obstacles. Primarily for these reasons, they can be more effective than mechanical robots in search and rescue applications. They can also be trained to detect and home in on specific sensory targets, allowing them to be used as biosensors. To meet these challenges, a cluster of interrelated research studies, including network topology design, routing algorithms, media access control techniques, radio resource management, radio propagation modeling, and mobility modeling are comprised. In this paper, the authors have designed and implemented the hardware of backpacks and set up a simple wireless ad hoc network by using static routing.